Review by K. R.

I first started using Corel Draw back when I purchased a license of Corel Draw 2. The last full version that I bought and used was Corel Draw 8, not counting the home and student license of X5 I bought (but never really used) during one of Amazon’s Gold Box Deal sales. I got away from using it at that point when I got assigned to teach a digital graphics & animation class where they were using Adobe’s Photoshop 5 and Illustrator 10. I eventually bought myself a license of Adobe Creative Suite 4 Design Premium to use at home. And have since upgraded to their Creative Suite 5.5 - Design Premium. But now that Adobe has chosen to eliminate physical updates in favor for digital downloads (and maybe even going to an online application) I’m looking to go back to using Corel Draw. Nearly everything I need to do can be done with this new version of Photo-Paint and Corel Draw X7. You can even set the programs GUIs to mimic Photoshop’s and Illustrator’s.

The one thing that I have not liked about this new package - is that the content libraries are all on-line now. I found them to be a bit clunky to navigate and somewhat confusing as to what the three different badges were suppose to represent. I couldn’t find any reference to one of the badges in any of the online documentation. Not really a big deal for me, as I hardly ever use the stock clip-art, and I still have all the stuff that came with my previous versions of the software.

The PDF manual that you can download is adequate for getting up to speed on the software - but I will be purchasing the CorelDRAW X7 The Official Guide (if and when it becomes available).

I like the new versions of the software, with maybe the exception of the Website Creator package. First off, it doesn’t come on the installation disc - you have to download it off the internet. And it doesn’t install with the software packages. But I think the main reason I didn’t have a positive feeling about it, is when you open it you are presented a matrix of squares much like the new Windows 8 GUI. That really turned me off. Again, not that big a deal as I don’t really do a lot of web page creating these days - and when I do, I like to code things by hand using plain HTML. Maybe later I can play with the Website Creator software and see if I can get past the look of the opening screen.

Over all I would say Corel’s done an good job with this new release. I’d recommend it.